Governor's Cup Crash: UK falls 41-0 to rival Cards
For the second straight year, there will be no bowling for the Kentucky Wildcats.
Louisville saw to that on Saturday, thrashing its lifeless rival 41-0 at L&N Stadium to retain the Governor’s Cup.
“Rough day. Not what we were looking for,” a dejected Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops said. “Extremely disappointed… It’s hard to say (what happened). It really is.”
The Cardinals (8-4, 4-4 ACC) snapped a three-game losing streak by leaning on several backup players taking up the slack for injured starters. Foremost were walk-on freshman running back Braxton Jennings and freshman receiver-turned running back Shawn Boykins Jr.
Each player topped the 100-yard mark on a day when Louisville rolled up 440 yards of offense.
Playing on an injured foot, Louisville quarterback Miller Moss even had a nice day, completing 12 of 20 passes for 182 yards and three touchdowns in addition to a rushing score.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals’ defense held Kentucky (5-7, 2-6 SEC) to just 147 total yards. The Cats’ leading rusher, Dante Dowdell, had 27 yards on six carries.
“We just couldn’t get any sparks,” Stoops said, “nothing going to get us any momentum or anything. When we did there was, like, a penalty or something that just sent us back.
“They just whooped us, and then we whopped ourselves.”
It marked the worst shutout loss for UK since a 49-0 flogging at LSU in 2006.
Kentucky’s all-systems-failure performance began with a blocked punt that the Cards recovered at the UK 10. Four plays later, Louisville scored the only points it would need on a 1-yard quarterback keeper by Moss on 4th-and-goal.
Cooper Ranvier kicked a 34-yard field goal on the first play of the second quarter to extend the UofL lead to 10-0.
The play that may have sealed the Cats’ fate came on the Cards’ next possession as they turned a 4th-and-1 from the UK 43 into an uncontested touchdown pass from Moss to tight end Jacob Stewart.
With that play, history suggested Kentucky was done. In Stoops’ 13 years with the Cats, he has lost all 49 games in which his team has trailed by 14 or more points.
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In our regular postgame feature, the Cats Illustrated touches on some quick-hitters from the UK loss…
GAME BALL:
Braxton Jennings, Louisville — With the Cardinals’ top four running backs out of action today, the walk-on freshman from Ashland carried the ball 20 times for a career-high 113 yards against the Cats.
BY THE NUMBERS:
1.5 – Average yards per rushing attempt by Kentucky.
2/14 – The Wildcats’ third-down conversion rate.
4 – Fumbles by Louisville, all recovered by the Cardinals. UK also dropped an interception thrown by UofL. The final tunrover margin was +2 for the Cards.
6 – Sacks allowed by the UK offense.
19-17 – Kentucky’s lead in the all-time series with Louisville was trimmed to just two games.
2002 – The last time UK was shut out in its regular-season finale, a 24-0 loss to Tennessee.
QUOTABLE:
“Zero means zero.” — Mark Stoops when asked if he would consider stepping down as the Wildcats’ head coach.
UP NEXT:
Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart has a difficult decision ahead of him. The football program finds itself in four years of decline and a head coach who seemingly wants to stay and is tethered to a massive buyout that may make it difficult for Barnhart to make a move. Making matters even dicier, several major programs across the country are jockeying to fill their own coaching vacancies. Whoever is coaching the Wildcats next season he will be facing perhaps the most challenging schedule in program history as the SEC moves to nine league games.